Recap of Hub One’s Epic Hour with Benjamin Dada on digital media and growth

Last week, we partnered with Hub One — an innovation hub and co-working space owned by First City Monument Bank (FCMB) and managed by Leadspace by Passion Incubator to host February’s edition of Epic Hour.

Epic Hour brings together top players in the tech industry to share knowledge and experiences with attendees. In this edition, our Publisher and Nigeria’s Country Manager at Stitch, Benjamin Dada shared insights on how startups can leverage digital media for growth.

In this post, We will share with you our takeaways from the session. Before we dive in, let’s define the basic terms in the theme:

Digital media is any form of communication that is executed using digital tools or any media effort that is electronically mediated.

Related: What tech companies can learn from Korty EO’s approach to marketing

According to Benjamin, to understand digital media, you need to break it down into owned media, earned media and paid media:

Owned media refers to when startups communicate to their audience via their own platforms like blogs, podcasts. Meanwhile, earned media is when people share promotional content about a startup without the startup’s orchestration; Paid media has to do with paying media outlets.

Growth has to do with creating awareness and acquiring customers in the process and also retaining them. This is achieved using the aforementioned media.
Thought leadership is a vital content marketing tactic that startups can leverage for growth; instead of selling products, startups can focus on insights that can shape opinions about the products.

Marketing is about shaping perception!

How startups can leverage social media for growth.

Purpose over Popularity
It is not enough to be popular on social media. As a startup you need to be strategic with what you post. You should think of reasons such as: why would anyone want to come back to your page? What value can you provide that can not be gotten anywhere else?

You can start out by giving people information that is actionable, thought-provoking, motivational, and entertaining. Also be sure that your content aligns with your brand’s identity and goal.

Be Consistent
There’s a glut of content on social media. So if you want to stay on top of peoples’ minds you have to regularly show up. When people go on social media, all sorts of content pop up on their feed (including your competitors). The only way you can drive attention to your startup is to consistently create valuable content.

Engage with your audience
This applies to all of your digital platforms (websites, social media, and CRM). Customers still want to be treated like kings. When your audience asks a question, respond. When they make an inquiry, be prompt to answer. You should also engage with the posts of your audience and your network.

See social media as a marketplace where when you don’t attend to customers, your competitors next door are waiting to attend to them with open arms.

What makes a story newsworthy?

“Journalists writes stories with an inverted pyramid — a story structure where the most important information (or what might even be considered the conclusion) is presented first”, Daniel Iyanda, acting Editor at Benjamindada stated, adding that “startups should always think about very important angles that are relevant and will drive engagement before pitching a journalist”.

He added that startup founders and media teams should invest in building relationships with journalists in their ecosystem. These relationships, according to him, give you an edge when you’re pitching. And in sending press releases, startups should always personalise the emails.

However, when your story is more of a product feature announcement, it’s preferable that you leverage sponsored posts.

How to build relationships with journalists?

Responding to the above question, Benjamin said:

• No one likes a person who only takes but never gives.
• Avoid transactional relationships. Pay attention to building relationships with journalists that are not in the spotlight at the moment and engage in conversation with them on social media.
• Create events that provide opportunities for networking

However, building these relationships takes time but with consistency you can achieve it. It was a really insightful event, do well to listen or watch the full session.

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